Cellphone Charger Saves Sheriff’s Deputy from Bullet

Stockbyte/Thinkstock(LOS ANGELES) — They say technology helps us live better lives, but in the case of one sheriff’s deputy, technology could be the reason she’s still alive.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release that a cellphone charger in the pocket of a deputy deflected a bullet headed for her thigh Tuesday, during a shootout that left a suspect dead in a neighborhood on the city’s south side.

The odds are insurmountable — a half-inch-wide bullet from a .40 caliber handgun striking a cellphone charger no more than 2 inches across.

“I’ve heard of deputies’ badges stopping rounds, I’ve heard of a lot of things stopping rounds, but something that small is nothing short of a miracle,” Lt. Michael Rosson said to ABC 7 Eyewitness News in L.A.

The bullet deflection occurred when two deputies, a male and a female, pulled over a car with paper license plates in the Inglewood neighborhood of Los Angeles.

Investigators with the sheriff’s department told ABC 7 Eyewitness News that a male passenger in the vehicle immediately got out of the car and walked toward the deputies. In response, the female deputy exited her vehicle and began to search the man. When she found a weapon on him, the male deputy left the police cruiser to assist the female deputy.

“The male deputy, for lack of a better term, bear-hugged the suspect, pinning his arms to his side,” Rosson said.

But investigators said the suspect still managed to engage the deputies in a shootout, eventually firing the bullet that struck the cellphone charger in the female deputy’s pocket. The deputies fired back, and the suspect later died as a result of the shootout.

The bullet’s deflection was undoubtedly one that gives the deputy more reason to charge her cellphone on the job. The sheriff’s department press release said that “an accessory for a cell phone saved the female deputy from a possible life threatening injury.”